Secret Smiles
by gin kokoro ma
Summary: Raphael is sick and tired of not expressing his feelings. Why is it so hard for him to tell his brother he loves him?


Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been updating at all, I'm in one of those moods where I've got so many started stories but my mind is going so many places that I can't seem to finish any of them.

It's also kinda weird that I'm such a big Donatello fan, but lately all of my stories have been Raphael-centered. He's fun to write about.

In this story, I'm trying to say that he's very intelligent, and even if he seems irrational and moody, the random things he does actually have logic behind them.

PS: Don't own, don't sue.

Aanyway, enjoy, and please review! : )

_My eyes were shut. _

_I refused to open them, even though I knew I was in danger. I could not open them. I knew he was right beside me. I could almost feel his breathe on my neck. Almost. _

_My eyes were shut. _

_The room was freezing, wherever I was. Not the normal chill, but a bone-shattering, throbbing cold that threatened to make my guts erupt. If I was this cold, I was sure Donnie must be….oh wait. No. _

_My eyes squeezed tighter. _

_That's right. He was already cold. Colder than I ever was. There was no warm breathing on my neck. Only cold. I was afraid to move, afraid to accidentally touch him. I could feel his lifeless eyes staring at me. I could almost feel his pleading gaze burning holes in my back-if only there were warmth. _

_All of a sudden, my eyes were open, and I was staring directly into those lifeless eyes. Blood slowly dribbled out of his mouth and dripped onto the floor in a steady rhythm of drip-drop, drip-drop. His face was frozen in a terrible scream, his mouth forever calling the name of his brother that had never come. Too late, I was too late. _

_I tried to backpedal away from my dead brother, tried to look away, do anything to escape, but I couldn't move. We both sat frozen, staring at each other. Bile began to build in my throat, and I let out a hoarse grunt when my little brother's body began to slowly topple forward. I panicked, again trying to get away but again unable to move away. He was falling, falling and I couldn't get away. _

I let out a yell and instinctively grabbed at a hand that was suddenly shaking my shoulder. Anticipating this, the hand dodged away and my eyes whipped up and stared into the eyes of my dead brother.

I yelled again and backpedaled, this time succeeding and slamming into a wooden furniture arm. I then realized where I was-oh, crud. I was on the couch, at home.

Donnie looked confused and slightly hurt at my reaction. "Geez Raph, you okay?" he asked me. His eyes no longer were unseeing, and instead were filled with concern.

Concern. Ugh.

"Get outta my face, Braniac," I muttered, trying to will myself to stop shaking.

Don was silent-this was his way of asking if I wanted to talk about it.

_Shell no. _

I'm not one for heart-to-heart talks. In fact, I usually avoid them. Tonight was no exception, especially when the turtle asking me to tell him what happened still haunted my mind as lifeless and bleeding.

Refusing to look back at my little brother, I got off the couch and stomped off towards the dojo, making a beeline for my old punching bag.

It wasn't even anything terrible that happened that day to make me have a dream like that. Donnie had just gotten a flying kick to his shell by a poorly-trained foot soldier that I hadn't been in time to stop-that was it. It hadn't hurt him at all, just knocked him down. But seeing it and not being there in time to stop it was what really pissed me off.

I don't see how some people can express themselves so easily…for me, it's insanely hard. I get flustered and mad, and then I get even madder because I can never say what I want to say; even when I was a kid it was like that. So eventually, I just stopped trying. And I hate it, I hate not showing my feelings. I hated brushing Donnie off like I just did. I didn't want too-but I don't know what to do otherwise.

I thought about what I would have, should have said as I punched away, making the old bag creak and sand sprinkle lightly on my toes. I could just barely hear Don's lab door shut as he hid himself away again in the scientific world.

I had to see him, to apologize and to convince myself that he was okay.

So I finally gathered my wits and walked up to his lab door. I knew that if I knocked and waited for an answer, I'd chicken out, so I just slid it open without second thought.

Here, I'm in. Now what?

"You could knock, you know," Don told me, irritation in his voice as he put down a beaker of who knows what. "I'm in the middle of a breakthrough in my latest experiments. I'm developing a safer alternative to morphine that-"

"Don't care," I grunted, interrupting his lecture.

"But Raph, this is-" "Don't care," I repeated loudly, crossing my arms. Geez, I'm trying to tell him something important and he won't stop blabbering-classic Donnie.

Donnie's eyes narrowed slightly. "Fine, then what do you want?"

I froze up. Yeah, yeah, I'm a wimp.

It's stupid, I suddenly decided, that I would apologize for not stopping an attack that hadn't even hurt him.

I spun on my heel and started to leave.

"Raph, wait," Donnie got up out of his chair and followed me out. "Now what's the matter? Something's been eating at you."

"It ain't nothing," I told him. "Go back to your morphine."

"Raph…"

I started to walk again.

No, no, no, this is what I do every time I have the opportunity to say something. _Stop_! I screamed at my feet. And miraculously, they obeyed.

I turned around and, before he or I knew what was happening, I had grabbed him into a tight hug. His body was stiff with shock, but after a minute he relaxed into it. But by then, I was done. I pulled away and flicked him on the forehead.

"Watch your back," I told him.

I then walked away, a secret smile on my face as I left a very confused little brother to sit and wonder what the heck that was about.

I went to bed smiling that night, which was something I haven't done in a very, very long time.

Theee end.


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